


good people

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 04:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: When she was young, Yasha never really had time to wonder if she was a good person or not.There were rules, and Yasha followed them. Yasha followed them very well. The Sky-Spear pointed to a target, and Yasha would take off their head. There was no ‘good’ in this – there were only orders.Then there was Zuala.





	good people

...

...

**good people**

...

...

When she was young, Yasha never really had time to wonder if she was a good person or not.

There were rules, and Yasha followed them. Yasha followed them very well. The Sky-Spear pointed to a target, and Yasha would take off their head. There was no ‘good’ in this – there were only orders.

Then there was Zuala.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Yasha says, muscles tensed as she leans back against the wall.

Zuala laughs softly. The tribe is camping out near one of the few premiant towns set into the soft earth of the swamp. The houses around them close in like a maze, claustrophobic and tight in a way that trees could never be. There is mud scraped along their thighs and water lapping at their ankles. Zuala looks beautiful like this, soft in the moonlight, dark hair highlighted silver and eyes a backlit amber.

“It’s okay,” Zuala says, pressing her hand against Yasha’s forearm. She doesn’t push down hard – they both know that if Yasha wants to, she could break away from this at any point. Yasha doesn’t. She feels weighted down, frozen. The chilly night air stings like needles to her lungs.

“We could get caught,” Yasha says.

“There’s no one here,” Zuala says. She leans forward, and up, so that she’s standing right on the tips of her toes. Yasha can feel her hot breath on her cheek. “It’s just us.”

Yasha closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

Then she leans forward to kiss her.

…

…

“You shouldn’t think so much,” someone told her, once. “You’re less useful when you try to reason it out. Just follow your orders and do it right.”

Yasha just nods. There isn’t much else she can do – there are only so many times she can outperform the instructors before she becomes labelled as a ‘problem’ rather than a ‘prodigy’, and she’s never been good at walking on fine lines. Zuala helps her with it sometimes, because Zuala understands people better than Yasha ever will, but mostly she just sits back and laughs.

“Don’t listen to him,” she says, lounging in the branches of a tree and stripping down leaves. “He’s just jealous.”

“I don’t understand,” Yasha says. She’s trying not to get too frustrated, but it’s hard. There’s so much that she just doesn’t _get_, and Zuala makes it seem like the easiest thing in the world.

“He’s calling you stupid,” Zuala says. “He’s a dick.”

Yasha sighs. “Maybe I am stupid.”

“He’s a dick,” Zuala repeats, throwing a ball of shredded plant-matter to land dead between Yasha’s eyes. “Don’t listen to him. Just keep whacking things until your problems go away.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Yasha says, a bit uncertainly. She brushes the crushed leaves from her face.

“Of course I’m making fun of you,” Zuala says. “Now go back to your sword practice like the good little soldier you are.”

Yasha grimaces, glancing down. She rubs her swollen fingers together. There are blisters across her palms, a few of which have torn open from her previous attempts at training and are bleeding down her fingers. She’s stopped packing them with dirt, which Zuala had yelled at her about a little while ago, but the one on her right hand looks like it might be infected. Again.

“Okay,” she says, picking up her sword and starting to whack at the dummy they had set up in the middle of the clearing. Training away from the main camp was a safer option these days, and besides, she can barely feel her hands anyway.

Yasha hears Zuala sigh. “You can beat up basically anyone in the tribe, and you haven’t even properly graduated from your traineeship. You don’t even have an epithet yet. That’s bound to cause some people to be jealous.”

“Okay,” Yasha says, bringing the sword flat against the dummy’s throat.

“You’re not stupid,” Zuala says.

“I worry about you,” Yasha says. She goes for the side next. She doesn’t look up. “Some of the things you say sometimes sound dangerous.”

Zuala lets out a loud hiss of annoyance, throwing another ball of crumpled leaves to hit Yasha’s head. “What, telling you that you’re not an idiot is _dangerous_? Fine, you’re an idiot. Are you happy now?”

Yasha grits her teeth. “You know what I mean.”

“Look, I worry about myself, you worry about yourself.”

“I worry about _you_.”

“Then _stop_,” Zuala says. “This place – doesn’t it get to you, sometimes? We’re always fighting someone. Some_thing_. It’s never going to end.”

“So?” Yasha says. Throat. Legs. Eyes.

“So doesn’t it make you _tired_?” Zuala says.

“Not really,” Yasha says.

“Okay,” Zuala says. She sighs. “Maybe I’m explaining this wrong. I love travelling around, seeing new places, meeting new people. I love reading books about things that are different and far away from here.”

Yasha grimaces. Zuala had been very insistent on teaching Yasha to read, even though the words often got mixed-up together and the lettering seemed wildly inconsistent at best and downright gibberish at worst. Still, she persisted at it. It had obviously meant a lot to Zuala.

Books had never inspired the same kind of wonderlust in Yasha, though. She had everything she could ever need right where she was.

“The boys from the tribe are starting to look at me,” Zuala says.

Yasha glances up sharply. “Who?”

“I’m not telling you,” Zuala says. “They’re annoying, but I don’t want them dead. But one day, someone is going to be persistent enough that I can’t say no.”

“If you’re unhappy –”

“I want the freedom to choose who I love,” Zuala says, staring steadily down into Yasha’s eyes. “I want to be able to travel and meet new people and see new places and fall in love with whoever I want.”

“The Sky-Spear –”

“There are rules here, Yasha,” Zuala says, almost gently.

Yasha goes silent.

“Sometimes, I’m too big for my skin,” Zuala says. “And sometimes I’m far too small. You’re the only person who stays exactly the same size.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Yasha says. “I’ve gotten taller than you.”

Zuala shrugs and leans back against one of the sturdier tree-branches, kicking up her legs against the trunk. She curls her hands underneath her head and closes her eyes.

“Never mind,” she says. “It’s not important.”

“It sounded important.”

“Go back to hitting things,” Zuala says.

Yasha sighs, and then complies. She is very good at following orders.

…

…

Yasha has never worried about being a good person.

A trustworthy person, sure. A strong person. A brave person. A loyal friend, and loving wife –

There are so many bodies.

Yasha has a voice whispering in her ear, tugging at the back of her neck, laughing shivers down her spine. She closes her eyes and thinks of Zuala’s desperate, dead stare, of iron bars and iron blood.

_You’re not stupid_, Zuala had said, and Yasha isn’t. Not really.

Being good was never really in the cards.

**Author's Note:**

> apparently when I can't sleep I write?? I'm switching meds and insomnia is running rampant, so here. have another ficlet. idek anymore you guys.
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](mnemememory.tumblr.com)!! I love these nerds so much.


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